Hundreds of chanting, whistle-blowing union activists packed the state Capitol rotunda and hallways, chanting slogans such as "Union buster" and "Right-to-work has got to go" as security officers and state police stood watch. Many packed the Capitol for a second straight day, continuing their loud chants and whistling in the Rotunda. Outside, many holding signs and wearing hard hats milled around the lawn and surrounding area, uneasily but peacefully mixing with supporters of the measures. State troopers and Capitol security were guarding entrances. Amid the din just outside the House chamber's doors, Democratic Rep. George Darany of Dearborn delivered the invocation to start Thursday's session. He gamely asked in his prayer "that our work be not confrontational." Rep. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, said he was "really disappointed" to see Snyder support "a plan to lower wages and impair the future of Michigan's economy."

Lovely. Of course, Snyder has national aspirations, and his "special-manager" crony-putsch-enabler bill got repealed at the ballot box in November, so he needs something that will attract those sweet speaking fees and all that ever sweeter campaign cash, and if he has to tear Michigan to pieces and toss it up in front of an electric fan to do that, well, that's somebody else's problem, not his.

But we must leave the dunes and the cherry trees, however, and travel south, to Georgia where, remarkably, the legislature just got less weird while the local public-broadcasting community fitted itself out for a beanie with a propeller on top.

The blog has long been a fan of Chip Rogers, the Majority Leader of the Georgia state senate, a man who seems to be spending his life wandering through a Classics Illustrated version of American conspiracy theories. Chip once wanted a bill to ban the implantation of microchips in Georgia citizens. Most recently, he got famous for conducting an informational meeting in the capitol building in Atlanta at which was explained the nefarious purposes of the blog's old friend, Agenda 21, the exercise in the dark arts by which the UN is planning to steal all our golfs. This finally may have been enough, although the fact that Chip was losing money hand over fist in various strange business deals might have had something to do with it, too. (Of course, silly. That's what they want you to believe!) Governor Nathan Deal, it seems, has arranged for both the defenestration and the soft landing, which, in this case, places Chip and the various exotic creatures rustling in his attic in a nice job with Georgia Public Broadcasting. I sure hope Chip is allowed a hand in the programming decision, because, boy howdy, that would liven up Pledge Week. "Coming Up After Car Talk: All Insanity Considered. Later tonight: Wait, Wait, Don't Monitor My Every Movement!"

Let's leave with Georgia on what's left of our minds, and hie ourselves hence to Oklahoma, where blog dinosaur-wine correspondent Friedman Of The Plains sends us a dispatch about the ongoing tennis match being conducted between the state legislature and the state supreme court over laws concerning the proper use of the ladyparts.

Tuesday's rulings are the second and third time in slightly more than seven months that the state Supreme Court has struck down a proposal that it said goes against a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on abortion. In late April, the justices rejected an effort to put on the ballot a question that would define a fertilized human egg as a person. They said in a unanimous ruling that the personhood proposal was void and should be stricken because the U.S. Supreme Court already had ruled in 1973's Roe v. Wade decision. Both state Supreme Court decisions Tuesday were unanimous.

So this is the way it works. The legislature passes laws it knows is are unconstitutional. The AG, an anti-choice Tilt-a-Whirl named Scott Pruitt, refuses to take no, nay, never, or "get this obviously doomed ball of fail out of our faces and never darken our towels again" for an answer, and he brings it before the supreme court, which must be getting so awfully tired of the whole business by now that a few of them may be carrying seltzer bottles and cream pies under their robes in case an opportunity arises. And then, a few months later, the whole thing starts again. And people say that nothing ever gets done. In Oklahoma, the same thing gets done, over and over again.

Let us get out of Oklahoma before the alarm goes off and the radio starts playing "I Got You, Babe" again. We can move to Arizona, where Governor Jan Brewer disappeared for a spell this week, only to turn up in Afghanistan, where I dearly hope some guy in a goat cart carrying an AK asked to see her papers.

Amid all that, Brewer said she had not focused on the potential danger to herself of being in a war zone.

Earlier this week, of course, prior to risking her life to bring the banalities of war home to the rest of us, Brewer "had not focused on the potential danger to herself" of sounding really stupid.

The question from KTVK's Dennis Welch came as Brewer was attending the Western Governor's Association's winter conference in Scottsdale, where energy and environmental issues topped the agenda. Welch is a long-time political reporter in the Valley. "Everybody has an opinion on it, you know, I, you know, probably don't believe that it's manmade," the GOP governor said. "I believe that, you know, weather elements are controlled, maybe, by different things." After the press gaggle, Brewer walked away, then spun on her heels and with a closed fist, whacked Welch, saying, "Where in the hell'd that come from," referring to his question.

Afghanistan is a helluva long way to go to avoid the laughter of the people who know you best.